Research on farmers polarization in Japan had indicated that during the period from the end of the Meiji era (around 1900) to 1955, middle-scale farmers, of which the operating farm size in terms of cultivating land was 1.0 to 2.0 ha, tended to increase in number.　The change in the trend had occurred in the 1960s, caused by the rapid change in Japanese capitalism. High economic growth in the 1960s, mainly attributed to the heavy chemical industries, necessitated the increase in labor supply from farming sector.　As a result, many farmers turned out to be part-time ones, and on the other hand, a small number of farmers could enlarge their farming size.　Under such a situation, there was an important controversy.　Some scholars highly evaluated the increase of large-scale farmers, insisting that newly-created large-scale farmers were business-minded entrepreneurs.　They regarded that the appearance of new farmers formed an epoch in history, expecting that the new farmers would undertake the development of Japanese agriculture. On the contrary, other researchers discussed that Japanese agriculture had been already dissolved, being not viable as an industry.　They pointed out that the share of newly-created large farmers in total production was very small, and that the majority of farm household economy actually depended on the off-farm income.

　今日，産業としての日本農業は，1970-75年を画期として，農地改革後の自作小農経営を止揚しての近代的な経営体（産業型自立経営）を形成，確立するところの歴史的段階に移行してきているものと見られる．
　農地改革が持ち越した小農経営は，戦後改革以来の二つの道の対抗（註1），即ち下からの要求・変革課題を上から取込み，「実現」することによって，上からの支配体制を築いたところの対抗関係を通じて，中農的自立化（註2）への一定の展望を持ちながら基本的には資本支配と収奪による被抑圧形態を示すものであった．
　以上の自作小農経営は，しかしながら1960年代からの高度な日本経済の成長・発展を通じてその社会的存立基盤を失い，決定的な空洞化，解体への動き（農業危機）を深めてきた.高度経済成長以来の日本経済社会の高度な発展についても，上記二つの道の対抗関係のスパイラル展開としてとらえられるが，それによる経済社会発展のもたらしたキャパシティは零細小農制をその害悪（被抑圧形態）もろとも解消し，そこから新しい近代的な農業の担い手層たる産業型自立経営の形成・発展をもたらしてきた.
　これにより，日本農業の今日的変革課題は，かつての “中農化” から “産業的自立経営” たる近代的な経営体の形成・確立へと移行してきたものと見ることができ，それを下から農業者自らが国民的な道において達成することにあると考える．
　そこで本稿は，自作小農経営を止揚する新しい日本農業の担い手層たる産業型自立経営がどのように形成されてきているかについてアプローチしながら検証し，その産業的確立についての国民的（歴史的）課題について明らかにしようとするものである．

　The decreasing number of agricultural successors are caused by the changes of society and in the lifestyle of the youth in this period of high economic growth. In the situation of rural industrialization and farm mechanization, sons and daughters in farm families are forced to choose between agriculture or an occupation outside agriculture. The constraints to secure agricultural successors are that agriculture is less attractive than another occupations, the low availability of spouses and the involved human relations in rural life compared to urban life. Recently, though there have been some formative youth who have opted to leave the city and settle in rural areas, and also there are a few enterprises which have acquired a unique personnel by the formation of agricultural juridical entities.
　To secure agricultural successors, it is very important that the now existing homogeneous type of rural society change to a pliable society that can accept heterogeneous beings such as a bride or newcomers from another region. Flexible coordination of paddy cultivation is also very necessary.

　We can indicate the following four points in order to secure agricultural successor in the long run. ① To relate through active participation, agriculture in every stage of human life. ② To create an understandable relationship between city dwellers and farmers. ③ To promote the education of learning by agricultural experience in order to understand the total function of agriculture. ④ To foster "communicational reason" to change the unfavorable reality.